Worship 18 Sharpening Our Worship Skills

[HKHaugan]

Which ditch are you willing to die in? All of us who are parents have probably faced that question with our gray hair producing teenagers. Was it the long hair, loud music, makeup, dress, language, or that really annoying rolling of the eyes look? Each of those ditches is how they test your value system, what you consider worth standing up for, who and what you worship. Worship is a built in ability. We were born to worship. If you really think about it we worship all the time. One glance in the mirror of our emotional memory, our ethical consciousness and conscience, is telling. As we have stated previously 'fitting in' is just as much a worship principle as taking a stand against it. It can be positive or negative. It's the value, the worth, you choose to act out that is worship.

From a parental perspective it's loving your kids. From theirs it's the enlightened youth against the old “they-don't-understand-me's,” the fearless against the fearing and 'ne'er the twain shall meet.' One thing is for sure. You can never predict their future nor yours either. You can only submit yourself to whom and what you value the most when it comes to relational reaction. You run the gamut of human emotion and instant demand. The inner struggle is between you and God, sin and love, fear and faith, responsibility and compromise. The biblical principle is training a child in the way he should go and when he is old he won't turn from it (Prov.22:6).

But response is not only family centered. Wherever you are with people what you are in your heart is going to surface in some way. What you believe, who you trust and how you respond will set the next moment's future. It is right in these three areas of human experience that worship is the key to life itself, spiritual life, eternal life, life that is Holy Spirit inspired, our born-again life. Worship is learning to adjust our biological life, our self-conscious being, our human mind, emotion and will to the consciousness of Jesus as the One in whose image I was created.

Worship is allowing my mind to think of itself as a young child following his daddy around copying everything he does. A child believes in his daddy. Worship is also like a child learning how to feel through life and finds that in his mommy, how she reacts to her husband and her friends. Worship is a child coming home from school and sensing security and assurance when a welcoming sound comes from a parent.

Worship happens when basic relational principles become the way we act, those being both positive and negative, as we have said. We can measure our worship by what we value most when the moment presents its demands. Teen years are the roughest when worship is shaped by peer pressure, which is a very spiritual assault by the spirit of fear, imploding upon our will. And it doesn't stop there either. College life, business life, church life, club life and any organization we may choose have their pressure points. In that daily mix belief, trust and faith make up the substance of our worship.

Isn't it great to know that we have a Savior from sin-driven worship and a Lord to reshape our worship through repentance and forgiveness in every next moment?

The question that lies before us in worship is how we sharpen the skills for worship we have been given. Since worship takes place in every next moment the primary resource is Scripture. Here is the treasure trove for setting the mind in a place where we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit's work. When Paul is encouraging Timothy, whom he considers to be like a son to him, he says, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and self-discipline (2Tim.1:6-7).” Each of us was given a gift or gifts when we accepted the Lord. Spiritual gifts need to be fanned into flames. This very writing you are reading, the idea of Kingdom's Keys Fellowship, the books I have written since retirement, study and prayer groups I am in, caring about people I know, feel strongly about and have reached out to, unexpected meeting of potential friends and practicing being faithful are ways I am trying to 'fan the flames.' It's a part of how I am in the process of sharpening my worship skills.

Just right now, for me, sharing what I believe is a piece of the truth from Christ, is worship in the here and now. Knowing that we are worshipers in every next moment is an experience in itself. That's why we go a step further. Knowing that every person in the world is an image of God (Gen.1:26-27) is one thing, practicing it is another. Worship is an attitude of the heart that lets me see and reach out to others because of their being His image. If they don't believe in Him it means I pray for them and for an opening to share with them. They deserve the blessing and respect that being an image involves. This is just a part of sharpening our worship skills.

Jesus' own worship was not limited to the Temple. Worship for Him was the desire to please His Father, to obey Him, to reveal Him and to share Him. He spent His time wandering the acreage in Galilee, valley to valley, town to town and person to person. He was immersed in and prayed Scripture and worshiped with His mind, He worshiped as He walked and taught among believers and unbelievers trusting His heart to His Father's will. He stood amongst the blind and the diseased healing them through faith empowered by the Holy Spirit. That's how Jesus worshiped His Father. He reached out to everyone He came in contact with.

Worship for Jesus was and is an attitude that makes living a daily liturgy that is on-going and not limited to what happens in a building for an hour on Sunday. The precious truth of that hour or time in the building is what we do with it, what Jesus did with it and what the early Church found in all the house churches. It was a celebration of what the Lord was doing in their lives all the rest of the time. The Lord's Supper was their reminder of the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross. The sacrifice that enabled them to live eternity in the present. At that Supper observance they shared their lives, their hope and their fears and prayed for each other. They were a new spiritual family related, transfused and transformed through the life blood of Jesus shed on His Cross.

Sharpening our worship skills starts with the attitude of our heart and the willingness in our spirit to yield our mind to His Word. So the words of Jesus, “Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only (Mt.4:10) extends into His next bottom line attitudinal gem, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind...and love your neighbor as yourself...(Mt.22:37-38).” If you're loving you're worshiping and if your worshiping you're loving. That's a ditch worth dying in. As the saying goes, “You can take that to the bank.”